“I’ll go and get a candle from the surgery.” I got my feet under me and stood up; I was stiff from crouching on the floor, and it was a moment before I could be sure of my balance. “There’s water on the table, there. You have a drink and lie down on the bed. I’ll be right back.”

I went downstairs in that sort of grim resignation one enters when there’s nothing else to be done, and climbed the stairs again, the candle’s glow softening the rough boards of the stairwell, shadowing my steps.

The truth was that while Marsali naturally didn’t blame Germain for Henri-Christian, he was probably right about her not having been able to look at him without being torn apart by the memory of it. That was why, without much being said about it, we had brought Germain with us to the Ridge, in hopes that both he and his family would heal more easily with a little distance.

Now he probably thought that his mother had written to tell him that she didn’t want him back, ever.

“Poor things,” I whispered, meaning Germain, Henri-Christian, and their mother. I was quite sure—well, almost quite sure—that Marsali intended no such thing, but I could feel his fear.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, gripping his knees, and looked up at me with his eyes huge, dark with longing. The letter lay by his side and I picked it up, sat down beside him, and opened it. I made a gesture, offering it to him, but he shook his head.

“All right,” I said, cleared my throat, and began to read.

“Mon cher petit ami—”

I paused, both from surprise and because Germain had stiffened.

“Oh,” he said, in a very small voice. “Oh.”

“Oh!” I said myself, suddenly understanding, and my clenched heart relaxed. Mon cher petit ami was what Marsali had called him when he was very small, before the girls had been born.

It would be all right, then.

“What does it say, Grannie? What does it say?”

Germain was pressed up tight against my side, suddenly eager to look.

“Do you want to read it yourself?” I asked, smiling and offering it to him. He shook his head violently, blond hair flying.

“You,” he said, husky. “You, Grannie. Please.”

“Mon cher petit ami,

We have just found a new house, but it will never be home until you are here.

Your sisters miss you terribly (they have sent locks of their hair— in case you were wondering what these straggly things are—or in case you’ve forgotten what they look like, they say. Joanie’s hair is the light brown, and Félicité’s the dark one. The yellow ones belong to the cat), and Papa longs for you to come and help him. He forbids the girls to go into taverns to deliver the papers and broadsheets—though they want to!

You also have two new little brothers who—”